Re: The Death of Emotion (ready the 'n' key)

[nstar!bluemoon!bsbbs!nrc@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (N. Richard Caldwell)]

katefans@chinet.chi.il.us (Chris n Vickie) writes:
 
>    Hopefully, this is the last of it. I wouldn't post, except that Mr.
> Caldwell _likes_ an audience, and becomes quite sullen when forced to
> use e-mail...

Chris would like to say whatever he pleases publicly and then complain 
when others address his remarks in kind.  Sorry, but some of my points 
are intended solely for the consumption of our readers at home since 
there is little point in talking to Chris about them.

Yes, Chris would very much like me to take this to email because once
there he drops all pretense of civility and if things get a bit too
rough and tumble he can always count on Vickie to become outraged 
and demand an apology.   

So, gentle reader, if you're tired of this you may want to skip it.
Be forewarned, however, that there is at least some Kate kontent within
this post, even if it is within the context of another disagreement
between Chris and I. 

>     Richard, in addition to the many worthwhile things you have to say,
> you routinely defend so many _inane_ (IMO) points-of-view (i.e. "The PMRC
> doesn't want to censor") that it is difficult to tell what is intended
> as humor and what isn't. 

The fact is that what the PMRC was seeking were _voluntary_ industry
warning labels applied according to the record company's own standards. 
That is what everything I have read has indicated and I've yet to see 
that disputed.  I don't agree with that idea but it's a far cry from 
censorship.  If anyone has any references to PMRC objectives beyond 
voluntary labeling I would be interested to hear them.  

The irony of this whole thing is that playing up the PMRC as a hoard
of evil censors was very much a tactic of the very record company squids
that Chris is so fond of vilifying.  Of course, as soon as the record
companies saw that cooperating with the right people might get them
a something else that they wanted (blank tape royalties,  or CD copy 
protection, I forget which) they dumped their little bandwagon right 
out on the street and slapped on the warning labels.

> > Sorry, next contestant please.   All you're saying here is that
> > Kate had an essentially different idea of what her set was to be
> > than what _you_ think it should have been.
> 
> No, what I am saying is that Kate really had no idea of what she wanted
> her set to be. What I posted was a description of what really happened
> as related by someone who was there. It was _not_ conjecture.

I never said that it was.  My point stands.  What Kate wanted was simply
different from what you wanted.  Learn to live with dissappointment.

> The set is an embarrassment when compared to box sets created for
> artists of similar stature (David Bowie, etc.). One factor distinguishing
> great box sets (Sound and Vision) from mediocre ones (This Woman's Work)
> is the amount of input by a fan or fans.

Exactly what Kate considers to be her "work" is a decision for Kate
and Kate alone.  If Kate does not consider a piece worthy for release
then I am willing to accept that.  Fans want every snippet ever recorded
regardless of quality.  The notion that an artist must lower themselves
to that level to satisfy their fans is absurd.   

There are plenty of artists for whom satisfying the fans is their
foremost consideration.  I think that Kate's direction has been to
produce the best work that she knows how and hope the fans like it.  That
is why she has created works of genius rather than simply rehashing what
the fans liked about the last album.

>  Kate Bush, bizarre as the assertion may sound, is not a Kate Bush
> _fan_ in the sense that most people on Love-Hounds are (at least adozen
> of us have bigger collections of Kate video than Kate herself has.)

No, that doesn't sound the least bit bizarre.  I would go so far as
to say that Kate may be one of her biggest critics.  That is why she 
obsesses so over her work.  Indeed, I think it is that very obsession
that has grown to the point where it has become an obstruction to her
creativity.  She needs to moderate that obsession somewhat in order to 
be more effective and productive in her work.  That does not mean
releasing everything she's ever put on tape, however.

>    Even a majority of us who like _The Sensual World_ would not claim
> that it is her greatest album, but have you ever read an interview where
> the artist _didn't_ mention his or her latest release when asked "What is
> your best album?"

Mention or choose?  On several occasions Kate either chose _The Dreaming_
outright over _Hounds of Love_ or mentioned that it was a dead heat
while acknowledging that you normally are closer to the most recent
work.  

>    Most artists lack the distance from their own work to have any idea
> what their _fans_ want. On the whole, this is a good thing; pandering
> to fans is not the way to achieve artistic growth (it killed Elvis).

Agreed. 

>   But the Box Set was, ideally, a product intended for fans; people
> ready and willing (though often grudgingly) to plunk down  $200. It
> _was not_ (as I have said before), nor should it be considered (capital
> letters) A Kate Bush Creative Project. It was a bungled business decision.

So you are saying that pandering to fans is bad but that this was a
perfect opportunity to be bad?  I think that she made the right 
decision not to pander to her fans.  Trying to claim that deciding what 
pieces Kate selects to represent her work is an entirely business decision 
is ridiculous.  What more basic artistic decision is there than what you 
will and will not release?  

> > Your tact from the very start has been to accuse first and ask
> > questions later.  
> 
>   In a word, bullshit. My posts about it have all been questions;
> "Who are these people", "If they claim Kate contacted them, shouldn't
> they be prepared to prove it?" and "Doesn't their 'message' sound
> quite a bit like the Bush-Con message?" I am not responsible for

What absolute nonsense.  The first mention of your accusation was posted
by Mike Mendelson, "The latest from our incommunicado love-hound in
Chicago, Vickie, is that she and Chris suspect that Kate's message
at the Ohio con was a dub of her message at the Canadian BreakThrough
con several years back."   You publicly accused them of fraud before
you knew anything about the message other than that it contained the
words "recorded properly".  

Yes, when you returned to Love-Hounds you did pose some of your
acusations as questions but those questions were completely rhetorical
since you followed them with accusations.  Accusing someone with no
evidence is wrong even if it is discovered that they are guilty at some
point in the future.

> > First of all, you are incorrect.  They did post one or more articles
> > from Little Light after your comparison, just as they had before.
> 
>   Maybe, but I don't believe so. I don't recall anything from them in
> the digest after my post. Please prove me wrong.

Always a pleasure.  Your comments where posted Tuesday August 20 just 
after midnight.  Jeff Tucker's last post in the current archives was 
on August 23.  The last currently available archive ends on August
25 so there may have been others after that. 

> > Suspicion seems reasonable in the wake of these events and the
> > way they handled -- or rather failed to handle -- the message in
> > their last issue of Little Light. 
> 
>    Nice to hear you admit it, even if it is in a very back-handed way.

Don't misread my words.  Their recent actions give cause for suspicion. 
That does not excuse your accusing them before there was any such cause.
It became evident very early on that your problem with LL and AATHP 
were based more on your irritation with their complaints about
Homeground and their ambition as a fan club than any just cause.  One
need only note your behavior here to see that your capacity for
irritation with those who disagree with you is quite impressive.

> Jeff Tucker didn't seem to have any problem with the my posts, and
> your attitude begins to seem like little more than belligerence.

The people at AATHP and LL were clearly approaching the issue more for 
public relations than to actually deal with your charge.  Their posts
were intended to be diplomatic and did not express the full depth of
their feelings on the matter.  

> P.S. Has anyone else noticed, that in order to avoid upsetting the
>     easily upsettable (dare I say "thin-skinned") folks like Richard,
>     posts tend to become so packed with qualifiers that they start
>     sounding like Congressional speeches? "Perhaps," "seems," "maybe"
>     oh, jesus....

Everything is not black or white.  Qualifiers play an important part
in showing the infinite shades of grey in between.  >Perhaps< Chris
would prefer a world - or for that matter a newsgroup - where he
could arrive on the scene and apply his patented "good" or "evil" labels
to all he surveys and have a hoard of little toadies kowtow to those
classifications with never a whisper of decent.  Fortunately, that is
not going to happen here.  There are will always be someone here who
will point out that something is grey no matter how badly Chris -
or anyone else - wants to brand it black or white.


                   "Then on to Monte Carlo to play chemin de fer
                   I threw away the fortune I made transplanting hair
                   I put my last few francs down on a prostitute
                   Who took me up to her room to perform the flag salute"

                         -- Warren Zevon, "Mr. Bad Example"


"Don't drive too slowly."         Richard Caldwell
                                  The Big Sky BBS (+1 614 864 1198)
                                  {n8emr|nstar}!bluemoon!bsbbs!nrc
                                  nrc@bsbbs.UUCP